New Standards for Productivity in the Process Industries

Simple solutions for the entire value chain – engineered by Festo

Festo has decades of experience in factory automation, experience which it also successfully applies to process industries. Integrated automation in combination with solution expertise and a global orientation guarantees customers of Festo competitive advantages in their global markets, enabling them to increase their Productivity, reduce their lifecycle costs and improve operations management in their plants.

“Automation solutions from Festo significantly reduce capital, installation and operating costs, and therefore the life cycle costs (LCC) of plants. Savings of up to 40% of the costs of conventional automation are possible in some cases”, explains Dr Eckhard Roos, Head of Process Automation Management at Festo. By changing the design of components and systems, users can extend the lifetime of production facilities and greatly reduce the number of rejects. This reduces the life cycle costs of production facilities and at the same time improves productivity. The end result for the user is increased competitiveness in their global markets.

For the process engineers at Festo, knowledge of the customer’s processes is essential. Part of this is about understanding the production technology. It is precisely this knowledge that enables the process engineers to develop optimal solutions together with the customer, and implement them starting from the basic engineering phase throughout all the subsequent phases at all the customer’s production locations worldwide via a global engineering, production and service network.

Systematic automation...

The basic engineering lays the groundwork for optimum automation of a system through standardisation. As well as offering advantages when it comes to procuring the system components, standardisation simplifies global sourcing. It also pays off during the operating phase since process automation systems can remain operational for up to 25 years – much longer than factory automation systems. As well as saving on the stock of spare parts and training requirements, standardisation also makes it easier to validate the system technology. “Further advantages can be achieved by broadening this concept from the system to the entire plant,” continues Dr Roos.

An example of successful standardisation is B. Braun Melsungen AG, Europe’s most modern manufacturing plant for infusion solutions. Thanks to a comprehensive analysis of automation technology requirements by experts from Festo and B. Braun, the entire value chain benefits enormously from standardised automation components. This enabled the pharmaceutical company to significantly increase system availability while achieving a substantial reduction in maintenance and replacement component costs.

...along the entire value chain

As many machines and systems as possible along the value chain, from the mixing systems through to the filling machines, sterilisers, inspection machines and packaging machines, were to be equipped with the same or similar automation solutions and products. The advantages of this were obvious, namely less need to keep stocks of spare parts, less complexity in maintenance work and, the biggest advantage of all, having to deal with just one automation partner. This last factor speeded up ordering processes and, because of the large quantities involved, generated economies of scale and thus lower purchasing costs.

However, the basic engineering allows a critical look at more than just the automation technology. “Optimising components and how they are connected mechanically has benefits, in particular for multi-purpose systems, for example by reducing the number of end products lost to flushing or cleaning processes”, explains Dr Roos. An example of this is a distribution system designed by Festo for use in the production of toiletries.

Complete solution to a problem

The complex network of pipes and fittings used in the production of toiletries leads to considerable product losses when changing production from one item to another. The answer was a complete solution from Festo. Decades of engineering expertise helped to resolve the customer’s problem and to permanently increase the productivity of the plant across the entire product life cycle.

The solution was a new compact ball valve distribution manifold for more than 20 tanks used to store various fragrances. In order to realise this quickly and precisely, first a 3D CAD model was produced and agreed with the customer. To be on the safe side, Festo also produced a rapid prototyping model on a scale of 1:5 before finalising the design. This allowed some final fine-tuning of the project in consultation with the customer.

Increased efficiency

The topic of “efficiency” is gaining increasing traction among plant operators, whether in planning processes, procurement, construction and commissioning or in the use of energy and other resources.

This does not necessarily mean investing in new plants; existing plants and how they are networked can offer enormous savings potential. Examples of this are pumps in wastewater treatment plants or personnel costs for inspecting rainwater retention basins. Modern automation technology can also do away with the need for investment in the electrical infrastructure of supply networks. Like in St. Petersburg, for example.

Saving electrical installation

Until now, electric actuators were the first choice for Russia’s water treatment plants – for opening and closing the inlets and outlets of sand-bed filters or in pumping stations. In St. Petersburg, the use of only electric actuators would have meant an installed power of 75 kW. The plant could not have supplied this without extending the electrical infrastructure.

A pneumatic system with actuators DAPS, including two air compressors, required an installed power of only 10 kW. Simply by replacing the electric actuators with 120 pneumatic actuators, the operator of the St. Petersburg water treatment plants was able to save at least an additional €65,000 that would otherwise have had to be spent on the energy supply.

Production data = information

The goal of avoiding production downtimes as a result of malfunctions is right at the top of many users’ wish lists. Matching automation products with diagnostic functions for data evaluation form the basis for this and facilitate advanced maintenance scheduling. However diagnostics are not just limited to monitoring the automation solution from Festo.

In fact, targeted evaluations of data can provide information about faults in the complete system. “This is one more way in which system availability can be increased”, says Dr. Roos. This data can be viewed and used in the local system network, on the intranet or even worldwide via web browsers.

Water supply overview in real time

Take the Philippines where an automation solution from Festo has increased the productivity of the water supply for the city of Angeles. The technological heart of the system is the real-time communication between the delivery and distribution pumps and the process control centre via WLAN. Festo was responsible for the whole project, from development to procurement, installation and commissioning.

Today, all key information is fed into the process control centre around the clock, and provides an accurate picture of the water supply in real time. The plant manager can see the system status on the display at a glance and take action if necessary, although the fully automated control system means that this is only necessary in exceptional cases.

Festo AG…

… is a global player and an independent family-owned company with its headquarters in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany. The company supplies pneumatic and electrical automation technology to 300,000 customers in factory and process automation in over 200 industries. Worldwide, Festo's 16,200 staff in 61 companies generated a turnover in 2012 of some € 2.2 bn. Each year 9% of this turnover is invested in research and development. Festo supplies around 30,000 catalogue products in several hundred thousand variants and some 10,000 tailor-made customer solutions each year to customers in 176 countries all around the world.

In this learning company, 1.5% of turnover is invested in basic and further training. Training services are, however, not only provided for Festo's own staff – Festo Didactic GmbH supplies basic and further training programs in the field of automation technology for customers, college students and industrial trainees in other companies.

Festo produces pneumatic and electric actuators, valves and valve terminals, handling systems, service units for compressed air preparation, sensors, tubing and microsystems technology at 12 locations, each specialising in particular product groups: in Germany, China, India, Singapore, the USA, Brazil, Bulgaria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine and Hungary. Countless customer-specific production solutions are created on a "production on demand" basis.

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